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SETI is about to get serious

By David L. Chandler

A RADICAL design of telescope is about to transform the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) into a full-time effort a hundred times more powerful than before. SETIastronomers are planning to link 350 small, off-the-shelf dishes into one huge telescope that will scan the skies 24 hours a day.

So far, the largest number of dishes to be used together is 27, in the Very Large Array (VLA) telescope near Socorro, New Mexico. But the VLA cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build. SETI receives no government funding, so to achieve comparable results at a fraction …